I tried that and with a opimas mag head set could not make out anything, but I will try again. I am not computer literate and when I tried to post even one pic it said no more than 150KB ? I am having my wife try but she is not sure either.. This is a Mac for her work, so if anyone has any ideas I would be most grateful...

Two ways to reduce photo size:Crop - cut unimport area from pictureResize - reduce the resolution. Both require software that I would expect a Mac to have. (I have no idea what comes with a Mac, but they are used by many artistic types, so I would expect good graphic software is included)

If the engine is out of the car (as it appears to be)... then carefully clean (with solvents).. . NOT mechanically... the oil filter boss, then examine closely with a very bright light from differing angles.. the VIN stamp there could come thru... It took me forever to *see* mine, but now it appears very obvious to me....?? try scrubbing the area with lacquer thinner and a brass brush... ?I am posting a pic below to perhaps help in locating the stamping...

Did they use different scripts at any given moment? I have a 9 6 7 and 4 in my VIN and not one of my numbers look like the picture posted by 69z28-rs, also my numbers are "upside down" compared to the picture and 69z28-rs's picture of the stampings looks clear as day, mine are very tough to see.

Can you put up a pix of yours for comparison purposes? I'd love to see others.Mine looks clear in that pix because I *removed the engine just to check*, cleaned carefully, was examining with magnifiers, etc... all over it *outside* in bright daylight and still couldn't find it for awhile...... When I found it I was elated, because I'd wondered for years why my front pad didn't have the VIN on it like my friends's '69 Z28... Anyway, I took pains to get that photo to capture the numbers as clearly as possible, because they are impossible to see with the engine in the car.ps. I worked as an imaging engineer for 30 yrs developing imaging equipment for missile sensors, and aerial and satellite photo imaging; I learned a few tricks..

Here is a pic, one trick I've picked up is to take the picture and put into an editor and apply the negative image attribute to it, and it is amazing how some of the detail shows up. I removed the last two numbers in the VIN, paranoid a little.

I can't read all your numbers (the first one after the N in particular) and you blacked out the last 2.. The last 2 are generally larger fonts than the others... as this was the result of the way they incremented the stamps from car to car... you can see my last two digits (47) are larger font than the remainder of the stamps. This same characteristic is true on my Trans stamp. Have you compared your engine VIN stamp to the Trans stamp? My understanding is that the same gangholder was used to stamp both at the same time (relatively same time anyway)..

The last 2 digits are the same size and basically the same font, the last digit does appear a little lower then the rest of the set. I've attached a picture of the transmission VIN stamp and it not the same as the block. Any info or thoughts from others would be appreciated.

Try this method it worked for me. First clean the pad very good, then take a yellow crayon and rub the area over and over a few times good, then take a firm toothbrush and gently scrub off the excess crayon , then take an LED flahlight and take a look. Try taking a bunch of pics at diiferent angles to get a pic. For awhile I did not see anything at all and then did this. Pretty cool. My motor was still the car as well making it harder. Good luck let me know what u find.

Also make sure your car was not built when they still stamped the front pads, then the front pad may have been decked.

I've gotten a question about my engine and transmission VIN numbers not looking like they were from the same stamping mechinism and if that constitutes my engine not being authentic. That makes me wonder!!! If some more experienced members could look at my postings with the pictures and let me know my numbers are reasonable and that it is possible that the transmission and engine could have been stamped with different tools I would greatly appreciate it. In Jerry MacNeish's book the picture of the VIN on engine block by the oil filter has straight 6s and 9s, like mine, and the tranmission VINs in the book also look like mine so I figured my junk was authentic. But if they were 100% stamped with the same gangholder at the same time then mine would have to be wrong, is that a correct assumption?